Is Your Adult Self Better?

It's that time of year when folks start posting about high school reunions which got me to thinking ... 

There appears to be two main schools of thought on the subject of high school.

The first is that "those were the best years of my life." 

The second is that we're all better people now than we were in high school.

And some folks subscribe to both theories. 

It comes as a big surprise to most people that I liked high school. Not in the "OMG I'm the prom queen and these are my 57 best friends" kind of way, but in a "I had friends and, though I would never do it again, I had fun and don't need therapy years later" kind of way. 

And seeing a group of high school friends is on the list of high points every time I go home. 

But people who refer to high school as "the best years of our lives" will forever freak me out. 

Not only because it wasn't that great, but because that implies that we've all maxed out. That everything else is all downhill. But shouldn't there always be a next thing you're looking forward to that's going to be amazing? Whether it's having kids or getting rid of your kids or going to some new country, isn't that the point of it all is that the next best thing could be right around the corner? 

And while I'm rambling, here's another one I'm stuck on ... 

Have we all actually changed since high school? Clearly we have (hopefully) in some way, shape or form. But are we really that different? 

Everyone likes to believe that we're all different 15 it 20 years later, but is that actually true or is it just that our stories change, but we're still fundamentally the same, personality-wise as when we were 15, 10 or, as some research implies, five?

There's no real answer to this question, so I'll just let my five blog readers ponder that ...